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haresfur

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Posts posted by haresfur

  1. Feeling sorry for myself, working on a manuscript on Australia Day. Drinking Australian Sencha packed by McIvers (at the Victoria Market in Melbourne). I'm no expert, but it is nice - perhaps not as 'grassy' as I like.

    I just read an item from a media watch regarding Ito En sourcing tea from Australia and sure enough: http://www.itoen.com.au/product/index.html

    I guess that means that the tea in my Costco green tea bags may circumnavigate the Pacific from Australia to Japan to the US and back here.

  2. 2 oz rye (Rittenhouse)

    1 tsp 1:1 simple syrup

    1/2 oz blood orange juice

    4 dashes Regan's orange bitters

    Rinse glass with absinthe (Obsello)

    Build over ice

    The blood orange season is brief here and I found some small ones at the local Sunday market (1/2 orange was 1/2 oz of juice). Looks lovely and is very satisfying. This was tweak #2 on the proportions and I think further research may be in order :wink:

  3. Is there any value to looking for the Captain Morgan Black (non spiced) rum while overseas? Or is it just the novelty of the fact that it doesn't seem to be routinely available in the US and is otherwise a largely unremarkable rum?

    I don't think the Captain would add anything to your cabinet that you couldn't get elsewhere. I have a nostalgic connection and it is my basic dark rum but it certainly isn't top shelf. If I wasn't up to my limit I'd pick it up duty free.

    You might want to look for a Venezuelan rum if you can't find them locally. Chris Taylor may remember which one we sampled.

  4. I've been working on a white-bean chicken chili that I'm getting pretty happy with. I've been using black-eyed beans but any white bean would do. I'm sure the taste profile could be adjusted but for the purpose of this thread I think it is a nicely efficient use of the pressure cooker. The procedure is:

    Take one whole chicken, remove legs/thighs and wings for a separate dish and put the rest in the pressure cooker and cover with water. Cook on high pressure for 20 minutes. Crash cool and remove the chicken. Add 2 cups beans to the broth and pressure cook on high for 25 minutes. While the beans are cooking take white meat off the chicken and shred with forks. Slow cool the beans (or get impatient after a while and crash cool). Drain water to level of beans but reserve to add if needed later. Add chicken, 1 cup chopped onion, 4 jalapenos chopped (or more - family compromises, you know), a green capsicum (or red) chopped, cumin, salt, pepper to taste. and simmer about an hour. Serve with sour cream or shredded white cheese and cilantro.

    I haven't experimented with pressure cooking after adding the chicken back to the beans because I worry about making mush.

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  5. Is nocello something I want/need in my life? You kind of know my palate.

    I haven't actually had any commercial product but I think, yes. It is very sweet but the green walnut flavour is powerful. In some way's it is like pimento dram - sugar syrup with a punch. That being said, it isn't like a lot of cocktails call for it. Bonus points if you can figure out how to cook with it. Pork maybe?

    ETA: Oh, Nocino, maybe. The friend who made it is Polish so he didn't actually name it for me.

  6. I think I like this

    Not sure

    1 oz silver tequila (Sauza)

    1+ tsp nocello (homemade gift)

    3 drops Bittermans xocolatl bitters

    This is the prototype size. The three ingredients each have taste profiles that I find rather strange and don't balance but seem to complement each other.

  7. I just picked up another set of these:

    stock cubes.JPG

    They are great for stock cubes because they have lids. Aussie seem to only make tiny ice cubes so I use them for cocktail ice, although I'd like even bigger ones. The sloping sides make it pretty easy to release the cubes.

  8. I think the telling part is, "the pizza at UPN is of the highest caliber. By that I mean that it was as good as any Neapolitan pizza I’ve ever eaten--but no better."

    It seems to me that Neapolitan pizza has such a narrow specification that it pretty much by definition has "flown as high as it can go." The process is constrained to give a particular result so the latitude to produce something transcendingly different is minuscule. If it was amazingly different it probably wouldn't be Neapolitan. What does he expect?

  9. Coopers is and has for a long time been the best of the mass market Australian brews. For sure. In all its variants. The new one, the 'celebration ale', is very good. Such a shame that overseas (judging by BeerAdvocate reviews and eGullet posts and etc) that Australian beer means either Fosters or shitty made-for-export-only 'craft' beers such as Barons.

    Our beer-club beer at work this week was Coopers 62 Pilsner. I'm not a big Pilsner fan or mass market beer fan, but this was pretty decent (or maybe I just really needed a beer). I agree that Coopers is the best mass market brewery here. And you don't get a bottle design with less wank factor.

  10. The Roquefort was definitely a little rough. I can see it being nice in small doses with something sweet like the port, but it was probably my least favorite of the bunch. The Stilton on the other hand was quite nice. I'll have to give the maytag a try on my next trip to the market...they have so many blues there.

    I was just thinking that "dose" is an important point. Many of us are too used to grabbing great gobs of cheese. I think this is a case where less is more.

    Oh, and Gorgonzola stuffed dates are nice.

  11. Australians don't seem to be big on solstice celebration. The only news item I saw was about people doing yoga in New York. I'm not sure if it is because the continent is at relatively low latitude or that traditional European near-solstice celebrations are out of phase. Some people do the English Christmas dinner for ~summer solstice but it makes more sense to throw something on the barbie. Right now my house could really use warming up with a roasting turkey, though. Maybe I'll just buy a chook and call it good.

  12. Sure! This is my hands-down favourite drink when I'm chilled or when I feel a sore throat coming on. It normally knocks me flat on my tush if I drink 2-3 of them (and they're tasty so it's not hard to do!) but I wake up feeling very healthy the next day.

    Ginger Posset

    1/2 oz ginger syrup (I use the panela syrup in which I have candied ginger)

    1 oz eucalyptus honey (or similar strong-flavoured honey - delicate honies get lost in the ginger)

    the juice of one lime (and if you're feeling like a fancy-pants, a twist)

    2 oz brandy

    hot water to the top of the mug

    pinch of cinnamon as a garnish

    Thanks for this, since it's warm-drink season here and I have some limes that need to be used up. I substituted Stones Ginger wine for the syrup and bumped the volume up to an oz. I used 6 oz water and found a splash more brandy didn't hurt. The honey was "Cup gum" but stringy bark eucalyptus might have been a bit stronger. Overall a winner until limes get too expensive.

    Oh, and my honey came in a plastic koala. :smile:

    ETA: I'm surprised you call this posset, since I thought posset had curdled milk in it. :unsure:

  13. I also remember not being able to find canned black beans in Australia (just cannoli and kidney beans). In fact, a lot of essential Mexican ingredients are pretty hard to find.

    Bendigo Wholefoods has a small Mexican section that includes canned black beans. They are pretty expensive but so are any canned beans at Coles or Woolies. I saw that they had Masa and dried peppers but yes Mexican ingredients aren't always easy to find. And even the Costco salsa comes in laughably small jars. Good thing though because I'd never be able to fit a gallon in the fridge.

  14. I took a slab of Costco's Kirkland beer to Beer Club at work (Friday have a beer after work) because it was something I knew no one had had before. Attendance has been fairly low so it lasted through 3 weeks. That meant I got to try all but the wheat beer. I wasn't super impressed by the amber but it was good enough. The pale ale was pretty hoppy and I quite liked the IPA. Overall good value for not too much more than a slab of Victoria Bitter (VB = blech). For non-Australians: it cost $50 but Sierra Nevada will run you $75. Too bad a Costco run takes most of a day for me.

  15. I would like to contribute "punnet," which is the basket-like container you buy berries in. I think it's a British term, I learned it from my Aussie husband. Interestingly, he also uses it for half-gallon containers (or whatever the metric size would be, 2000 ml?) of ice cream.

    I can second punnet, always used for soft berries (in the UK at least). Its bigger brother is the chip. You can get around 6 punnets in a chip. It is a minefield of units over here, we have sort of gone metric, but still stick with imperial when we can (just in case metric doesn't catch on?). Large quantities of vegetables (particulary root veg) can be purchased by the stone, which is 14lb. Onions are often purchased by the net.

    Cooked shellfish is often purchased by the pint (or half pint).

    I still haven't figured out the volume of a punnet - or does it vary?

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